The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked the manufacturers of three popular asthma medications to add new warnings to their labels, indicating that the drugs could increase the chances of severe asthma episodes that can result in death.
Advair, Serevent, and Foradil
The warnings would be placed on the bronchodilator medicines Advair and Serevent, made by GlaxoSmithKline, and Foradil, which is made by Novartis AG. Patients use them on a daily basis to relax bronchial muscles and prevent asthma attacks.
Only if All Else Fails
In a public health warning issued on its Web site, the FDA said that these drugs, and others in the same class, which are collectively known as long-acting beta 2-adrenergic agonists (LABAs), should only be used if other medical treatments have failed.
Best-Selling Drug
Advair is GlaxoSmithKline's biggest-selling drug, and the company's asthma drugs account for about 15 percent of their total sales. The company disagreed with the FDA's proposed labeling changes, arguing that they were inconsistent with established treatment guidelines.
Serevent and Advair already have a "black box" warning as a result of a study showing that Serevent patients had a higher risk of life-threatening asthma attacks and deaths.
Here we go again, yet more drugs that have been used for quite a while for a common problem, and now we find out they can kill you. It is no surprise if you are familiar with natural medicine, as this is precisely what you would expect if you use potentially toxic Band-Aids that in no way, shape or form treat the underlying cause of the problem.
If you haven't already done so, you will want to read my special Thanksgiving message in which I discuss how you can participate in a program that will start to put an end to this nonsense.
But getting back to the current asthma drug issue, in October, Public Citizen alerted the public about GlaxoSmithKline presenting false safety information to the FDA about Serevent. The FDA has finally taken action, at least to some extent.
It's no surprise that GlaxoSmithKline strongly objected to the warning: The company lost 4 percent of its net value recently on the stock market. However, Morgan Stanley analysts remained optimistic, arguing many U.S. physicians may disregard the warnings "given the positive Advair experience." This is exactly why warnings of this nature seldom do any good.
If you're looking to avoid positively deadly experiences with any potentially toxic asthma drug, here are some safer, more natural treatments worth considering: